Earlier in the week, I showed y’all how to make marinara sauce, what happens when you’re all out though?! No worries I am here to save you with my easy vegan pantry pasta! This pasta combines a lot of ingredients you probably already have around your house. You don’t really need to have anything else besides some sort of fat (in my case I used Country Crock Plant Butter), a few veggies, garlic, chili flake, nutritional yeast and cashews. The sauce is essentially constructed with the help of pasta water!
I am trying to add more vegan and gluten-free elements to my diet. Pantry pasta can be riffed on in so many different ways (check out some of my other pasta recipes like my Summertime Veggie Pasta!) that you can really accommodate to a lot of different diets. I will be using chickpea pasta for this recipe but feel free to use whatever you have. Instead of cooking with butter like I normally would, I cooked down everything in some olive oil.
Method
To begin, boil 1 cup of cashews of water for 15 minutes. Strain and blend with the oat milk and set aside. I used a coffee grinder/chutney machine and it worked fantastically. If you don’t have one a blender works fine. Cook your pasta of choice in the salted boiling water according to package instructions. I try to cook it a few minutes under so that it can finish in the sauce. Reserve the pasta water and set aside.
In a large pan or skillet heat up 1/4 cup of olive oil. Add you garlic, chili flake, and onions. Cook that down for a little bit and add your veggies. Continuously cook this down until the the veggies are coated in your garlic, onion and oil.
Add the nutritional yeast and cashew sauce to the pan and cook for a few minutes to get a cohesive sauce. Add drained pasta and toss to coat. Continuously stream in any additional pasta water to get a glossy sauce. I add extra pasta water and simmer the pasta in. If you are adding (vegan) parmesan alternate between the pasta water and parmesan to get a glossy sauce. Toss in some Italian seasoning and the juice of half a lemon. Garnish with the zest of the half lemon, any additional cheese and season with black pepper and salt to taste.
Vegan Creamy Garlic Pasta
Ingredients
- 8 oz pasta of your choice
- 1 cup raw cashews
- 1/4 cup non dairy milk
- 1/4 cup vegan butter
- 2 tbsp garlic
- 1 tbsp chili flakes
- 1/2 onion diced
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 2 tomatoes diced
- 4 oz mushrooms sliced
- 1 lemon juiced and zested
Instructions
- Boil cashews for 15 minutes, then blend with oat milk into a smooth sauce.
- Cook pasta according to package instructions, reserve all of the pasta water and keep aside.
- In a large skillet, heat up vegan butter oil on medium heat. Add garlic, chili flakes, and diced onion. Cook down until the onions are translucent.
- Add veggies, cashew mixture, nutritional yeast, and pasta. Toss to coat and slowly stream in pasta water to get a glossy sauce. Garnish with lemon juice and lemon zest.